Few people are aware that the true identity of William Shakespeare represents Western Civilization's greatest mystery. Even fewer realize that the commonly accepted authorship by William Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon, who was illiterate, is a complete hoax manufactured by England's leading politicians, William Cecil and his son, Robert, for personal reasons of greed and power. The hoax survived largely unscathed until 1920 when J. Thomas Looney's brilliant book, Shakespeare Identified, plucked Edward de Vere's buried name out of historical obscurity and introduced him to the world as the real Shakespeare. Fighting the astonishing power of conventional wisdom, believers in the de Vere theory have steadily built their case through now hard-to-find scholarly research for the past ninety years. This anthology series, Building the Case for Edward de Vere as Shakespeare, salvages fascinating, neglected authorship material which repeatedly and convincingly shows that Edward de Vere was the uniquely creative genius who wrote under the coerced pen name of William Shakespeare.